


Hunter Green

by Kendrene



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Aftercare, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst with a Happy Ending, BDSM, Bottom Kara Danvers, Dom Lena Luthor, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Kara Danvers Needs a Hug, Minor Injuries, Physical Abuse, Protective Lena Luthor, Roommates to lovers, Sub Kara Danvers, Subdrop, Subspace, Top Lena Luthor, oh my god they were roommates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:34:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22448014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kendrene/pseuds/Kendrene
Summary: When Kara catches Lena in the midst of a BDSM scene she is intrigued, and since there's no way in Hell she'll ever admit her crush for her roommate and best friend, she decides to seek out a Domme of her own.Veronica seems to fit the bill quite nicely, but appearances can be deceiving, and after their encounter goes horribly wrong, Kara will need Lena's help to pick up the pieces.Because, as it turns out, Lena has feelings for her too.
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor, Kara Danvers/Veronica Sinclair
Comments: 178
Kudos: 1070





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is somewhat based on my experiences as a Domme - due to the nature of what Kara suffers at Veronica's hands, the content may be triggering to some. I tried not to get too graphic in the descriptions - thus I don't think the archive warning is warranted, but please let me know if I should adjust the tags.
> 
> As for BDSM, any decent dominant will offer aftercare and make sure that you are okay after a scene. The level of intimacy varies - a professional has clear boundaries set - but the way aftercare is often disregarded within the community can lead to toxic behaviours. Be safe out there. 
> 
> \- Dren

Kara tries to sneak back into the apartment like a thief.

The elevator is the first obstacle. She tells herself she shouldn’t take it – it being early enough she may still bump into old Mrs. Watford and her overly friendly Pomeranian – but the truth is that, when the doors slide open and she catches a reflection of herself in the mirrored interior, Kara cannot bear to look. She can’t stand the thought of being trapped with her own countenance for company, not even for the handful of moments it will take to reach her floor.

She’s too restless after the afternoon she’s had. Too hyper-aware. Climbing the stairs will do her good. But, even as she clamblers up, the restlessness increases. It’s an itch beneath her skin, a deep-seated feeling that something’s out of place. 

By the time she’s made it to the long, carpeted hall that leads to the apartment she shares with Lena, Kara is sweaty and short of breath. The feeling something’s wrong has worsened, too, the itch so bad she’d tear off her skin if it’d do her any good. 

Her hands are shaking now, and it takes three tries to fit the key into the lock. Four palm-slicked attempts before she manages to turn it. 

The keychain rattles - the lock does, too - and Kara hopes that Lena is still at work. 

She has no such luck.

“Kara?” 

Lena’s voice drifts to her from the kitchen, accompanied by the aroma of ground herbs and warm food. Normally, Lena’s cooking would have her race to get a plate. Tonight it makes her stomach clench, and forces her to breathe with her mouth open until the nausea tapers off. 

“Hey,” she calls back awkwardly, knowing Lena’s expecting a response. Dreading, for some reason, that if she doesn’t get one she’ll come to see what’s going on. And then she’ll see Kara like this. 

Like _what_? 

Her hands tremble so badly she almost drops the keys. 

“I’m wiped!” she adds before Lena can ask anything else. “I’ll take a shower and go to sleep.” 

“Kara, it’s barely 9 pm. Is everything alright?” 

There’s confusion in Lena’s voice, and Kara sees her silhouetted in the doorway, but before her roommate can come closer, she’s already fled down the corridor and locked herself inside the bathroom. 

She expects Lena to follow, and perhaps knock. After all, her exit was all kinds of rude. But beyond the door, the apartment is quiet, and if not for the occasional creaking of the floorboards, Kara could believe that she’s alone. 

She’ll apologize for her behavior in the morning when she’s not so flustered. When whatever feels amiss will have been fixed by a good night of sleep. 

Already, she is starting to feel better. 

Her hands aren’t shaking anymore, reassured into stillness by the weight of the door locked at her back. The bathroom smells like Lena’s perfume and Kara’s favorite soap, and bath towels have been folded neatly on a stool - still warm from the dryer. 

Without thinking, Kara grasps at the scarf around her neck to tug it down. In her desire for privacy, she hadn’t even taken off her coat, and her purse is still slung over one shoulder.

It makes her want to laugh at herself a little, but the sound is barely out of her mouth before it turns into a sharp, pain-filled exhale. 

With her shivering subsided, the other complaints of her body make themselves known. An unpleasant heat tightens around her spine, and as the fabric of her shirt rubs into the sore skin there, she flinches, standing straighter. 

Bruises she had managed to ignore on the way home, numbed by the cold, awaken in the bathroom’s warmth. Kara can feel each purpling line hugging her ribcage, every open handed blow that landed on her bottom. The red, angry strokes painted by the riding crop on the inside of her thighs. 

She doesn’t want to meet her own gaze in the bathroom mirror, afraid to find a stranger staring back. But her eyes are drawn to it, and to the marks Veronica’s pale hands have left around her throat. 

A cold, rancid sweat sheens her brow, and her vision narrows to a tunnel at the end of which are the bruises peeking from the collar of her shirt. There are bells ringing somewhere in her ears, and her head is stuffed with wool. All of a sudden, she’s back inside Veronica’s apartment, stretched out on her bed, her hands tied at the wrists. She hears the sound of the crop striking flesh, but when she opens her eyes, she finds it’s just the water splashing against the shower tiles. 

She’s turned the faucet on and undressed without realizing, stepping under the flow.

The water is way too hot, but Kara shivers anyway, wishing she could leave her thoughts outside her shower. Piled on the floor, just like her clothes. Instead, her brain refuses to shut down, and replays her encounter with Veronica in a never-ending loop. 

She’d met the domme on Fetlife, days after gathering up enough courage to open an account. Weeks after she’d come home - early from work and unannounced - to find Lena’s bedroom door ajar, a woman kneeling naked on the floor at Lena’s feet. Lena with a flogger in hand, circling the unnamed woman like some keen-eyed bird of prey. 

Kara had fled down the hall to her own room and slammed the door a bit too hard to alert Lena of her presence. To shut out the strange emotion that had twisted in her gut at the unexpected sight - cheek-flushing embarrassment tinged, surprisingly, with a shade of desire. 

After, they hadn’t spoken of it, but what Kara had seen that night charged the air around them for some time. She still catches Lena staring every now and then, light green eyes narrowed in her direction, her brows crinkled in thought. Kara expects Lena to bring up the subject - because she _definitely_ won’t - but her roommate never does. It disappoints Kara a little. 

It strikes her as odd, too, because Lena is seldom quiet. Kara has seen it, on the rare days Lena works from home, the frank way she has of speaking her mind. How people twice her age and above her in the hierarchy of the company she works for fall in line behind her brilliance. Kara wonders if the same clipped, no-nonsense tone is used on the women that are made to bow their spine in Lena’s bedroom. 

Envy, ultimately, is what leads her into a google search. Jealousy of those allowed to relinquish all control in Lena’s capable hands. All the while telling herself she has no right to feel the way she does, because she and Lena are just friends, and the latter has never hinted that she’d want them to be more. Certainly, Kara would never impose. 

Kara had heard about kinks before - enough to know she wasn’t interested. But that had been before that fleeting glimpse filled her with yearning - for something she had no name for that had lodged like a splinter underneath her breastbone. 

Veronica had crossed her path just in time to pull that splinter out. 

The domme had come across nicely enough, if a bit harsh and acid-tongued. Willing to show Kara the ropes, and accepting of the limits Kara chose to set. 

In the end, they’d agreed on a scene, the boundaries re-checked and clarified hours before they were set to meet in a cafè a couple blocks from Veronica’s apartment. That had been the domme’s suggestion - to meet in a public place to break the ice and give each other a chance to call it quits should things feel off. 

The precaution had made Kara feel safe. Cared for. Nervousness abated, she’d started to look forward to their date. Excited to indulge in the fantasies that had turned her dreams to sweat-inducing hallucination which left her slick between her legs and wholly unsatisfied. 

The scene itself had gone as they’d discussed, and the fierceness of Veronica’s lovemaking will burn her skin for days, no matter how many showers Kara takes. 

It’s what she asked for, what she begged Veronica to do. What she deserved - the domme had sneered into her ear as she tightened pretty knots around her wrists. 

It had all gone as planned until…

Kara shuts her eyes and shivers under water that’s grown cold. The parts of it that had not gone well are entirely her fault. She could have tapped out anytime, but didn’t. How was Veronica to know the crop was falling far too hard over her back? How could she have guessed Kara hadn’t liked the way the domme had slapped her pussy, or the harsh bite of the leather on the inside of her thighs? 

Her fingers find the bruises around her neck, and the light pressure makes her flinch. Kara persists and pokes at them a little harder, a self-inflicted form of punishment. 

She could have safeworded and chose not to. There’s no room for complaint, really. Kara nods her agreement at the thought, but part of her must differ, because salt is slipping down her cheeks and mixing with the water. 

By the time she can bring herself to leave the shower, Kara is chilled to the bone. It’s nothing compared to the numbness filling every crevice on the inside, like the slow pour from a jug. It flows, carving a space between her organs until a lake of it is held within her chest. Brackish waves of fear and shame press into her lungs, and Kara puts a hand to her mouth, at once feeling like she’s drowning and about to throw all of the numbness up. 

It’s in the sudden, dripping quiet that Kara registers the truth. The thing that’s wrong - put together in a rush, and not the way it was - is _her_. 

The steam that had fogged up the air has all but evaporated, leaving nothing but glistening condensation on the tiles. Chased across the floor by a violent shiver, Kara turns her mind to her immediate needs, and reaches out for a clean towel. A hot meal and the softness of her bed will help. Everything will be better after she’s rested - or so she tells herself. 

Her palms throb against the fluffy fabric, white sores surfacing along the lines the ropes she’s been clinging to have left. Where the twisted hemp had dug, the skin is pink and warm, abraded by the friction. Her throat is raw as well, the feeling of Veronica’s clenched hand returning whenever Kara swallows. 

She’ll be wearing a necklace of purple bruises by tomorrow morning. 

Inhaling through teeth clenched by pain, Kara dries off, trying to resist the urge to peer into the mirror. Despite her best efforts, she catches a glimpse, and what she sees knocks the air out of her in a rush. The numbness breaches her lungs, seeping through, and Kara hunches forward. Now she’s truly drowning. The panic she’d managed to push down into the deepest parts of her belly washes over her - a black tide Kara has no means of stopping. 

Her back is a fretwork of welts. They criss-cross her spine in an intricate design, some raised and angry, while others - where leather split open the skin - weep droplets of clear fluid. On her ass, the bruises are already purple-blue, the blood drawn to the surface by Veronica’s heavy-handed slaps. It looks like she suffered through a beating.

That’s exactly what happened - a small voice in the back of her mind tries to suggest, promptly ignored. She hadn’t said no, she hadn’t told Veronica to stop. She’d wanted to let another take control - and Veronica had given her exactly that. The thoughts come in so fast, they tumble over one another, slipping through her mind as fine as sand before Kara can hold on to any of them long enough to truly understand it. 

“Kara?” 

Urgent knocking at the door brings Kara back to the here and now. Sensation rushes back into her body, and the room, which had faded to the background, sharpens into focus. 

“Kara, you’ve been in there a long time.” Lena’s voice vibrates through the wood, soft with concern. “Are you okay?” 

It’s that simple question, what Veronica didn’t ask - not even once - that does it. Tears come quickly and thick, obstructing her throat. Kara fights with all her might to push them down, chest heaving with the effort. Her ribs push and pull, air denying her lungs when she tries to fill them. Unblinking, she refuses to give in to the relief the tears would bring, thinking she does not deserve it. 

Still, quiet, half-choked sobs fill the bathroom, but Kara doesn’t realize they come from her own mouth until the lock _clicks_ and the door is pushed open. 

Lena edges inside, eyes purposefully averted. 

“I’m sorry,” her best friend says in a hurry, voice breaking with worry. “But I heard you crying, and I was afraid something had happened to you, so I picked the lock.” 

At that Kara sniffles, and lets out an awkward, fragile laugh. 

It’s hard to imagine proper, respectable, career-oriented Lena picking locks, but here they are. Her mind unhelpfully reminds her that Lena with a whip in hand is also something she’d never have thought possible, and Kara blushes crimson.

Pulling the towel more firmly around herself, she pretends that is the reason - after all, she’s never been near-naked in Lena’s presence. Even if she may have wanted to. 

“So, uhm.” An even fiercer blush is blooming across her cheeks, and Kara does her best to ignore it. “Where did you learn that?” 

“Boarding school. You’d be surprised by the things bored girls get up to.” 

The grin on Lena’s lips is short lived - withering the moment her eyes come to rest on Kara’s bruised neck. 

“That bad, uh?” 

“Not really,” Kara shakes her head, trying to play it cool. The towel shifts against her ravaged spine, and she has to bite back a gasp. “But it was my first scene, and I guess it affected me more than I expected. I got sort of stuck there for a bit. You know how it is.”

Lena surely does, better than Kara can articulate. She wonders whether her friend will laugh at her inexperience, and the flush spreads from her cheeks to her collarbone, causing the skin there to tingle.

But Lena isn’t laughing. She is looking somewhere inward, and her jaw seems intent on grinding itself into dust.

This is the closest they’ve ever come to discussing the night Kara caught Lena in the act. She’d hoped they would, but never in her wildest dreams had she thought it’d be like this. With her naked in the bathroom, and not quite put together the way she ought to be. 

“That can happen,” Lena says, after what feels like a lifetime. Kara knows only seconds have gone by. “The spinning out, I mean. When you let another pull you apart and they don’t have a care as they fit you back together.” Each word is slow and carefully weighted, but although Lena’s tone never heats up, Kara detects an undercurrent. A particle of anger that Lena can’t quite keep in check. She can’t help but feel Lena’s mad at her, and she drops her gaze to her feet, hands clutching at the towel until her knuckles are bleached of color. 

Lena’s right. Kara had allowed herself to drift too deeply, and rather than steering Veronica where she wanted her to go, she’d simply played the host to the other woman’s whims. But Veronica couldn’t possibly have known - Kara never spoke up to tell her no. 

This is absolutely her fault. 

Her hands begin to shake anew. 

“Kara?” 

Lena is pressing the back of a hand to her forehead, her brows lifted in question. 

“Kara, are you with me right now?” 

She wants to say yes, but when she opens her mouth to do just that no words come out. The thing is that Kara doesn’t really know how to answer that. She’s back in their apartment, sure, safe and sound, but no small part of her is still at Veronica’s, curled up and whimpering and cold on a bed that’s too big and empty to bring her any comfort. Trapped with a woman who won’t offer any, not understanding - or perhaps not caring - that Kara isn’t in the state of mind to ask for what she needs.

But that’s not fair to Veronica, is it?

“It was my fault,” she perseveres instead, words spilling over one another in their haste to climb out of her mouth. “I didn’t- I didn’t tell her when it got uncomfortable, I didn’t tell her when it hurt. We had a safeword, but I didn’t use it.” 

The words are coming so fast now Kara has barely time to breathe. She tries, but each inhale is shallow. Stifled. As though the shame that’s been simmering below the surface of her thoughts has taken form, petrifying her from the inside. 

“Kara, Kara, _Kara_.” Lena’s hands are curved around her cheeks, their foreheads almost touching. “You’re hyperventilating, darling. I need you to slow down and breathe for me. With me. Do you think you can do that?” 

Through a veil of tears, Kara manages to nod. 

Lena’s breath is damp against her cheek, each puff of air raising goosebumps on her flesh. She forces herself to match that rhythm, to listen while Lena whisper-counts next to her ear. Bit by bit, panic recedes, until they reach the point where Kara’s lungs can function without external help. 

“There you are.” She blinks, and the moss green of Lena’s eyes has never been this close. “There’s a good girl now.” 

Something about that word has Kara stumble inwardly. It makes her feel like her bones are made of the most fragile glass, her soul laid bare to scrutiny through a body that’s now entirely transparent - but safe in Lena’s keeping. She recognizes the dreamy, half-tethered state as subspace, but the experience isn’t nearly as frightening as what she’d gone through with Veronica.

The other domme had called her _girl,_ too, but the wickedness behind it made Kara feel weak. Belittled. 

“You’re doing very good, Kara.” Lena pulls back, slightly, and she almost whines with the loss of contact. “Are you able to tell me how I can help?” The green of her eyes pales to the color of everything that grows early in spring, with a hint of grey mixed in like a soft rain. Her brows are still knitted, but what Kara had mistaken for an angry glower is just a worried frown.

“I.. I.. You shouldn’t have to deal with this. I’m so sorry, I never meant-” Kara has to stop, more tears threatening to fall. She feels supremely stupid for it, totally undeserving of her friend’s concern. Here’s Lena, wasting her night on someone who can’t keep herself together long enough to answer a simple question.

“I want to deal with it, though.” Lena moves in again, her hand inches from touching Kara’s arm. As if she’s not one hundred percent sure where the boundaries are. “That is, if you’ll let me.” 

Kara wants to. She wants to fall apart and have Lena glue her pieces back together, inexplicably certain she’d do a much better job of it than Veronica ever could. She doesn’t know quite how to allow herself to tell her so. Instead, she fumbles with the edges of the towel, which is perilously close to falling off of her completely, and burns scarlet with embarrassment. To her credit, Lena doesn’t hurry her along. She puts her entire existence into pause for Kara - even her breathing stops.

“Please.” Movement returns to Lena, as though that simple plea put life back into her.

Kara’s throat is so tender from the bruising that she has to swallow a few times before continuing, and still, the next few words come out a croak. “I’m so scared.” 

“Oh, sweetheart.” Lena closes her eyes, and when she re-opens them, a change comes over her. 

It’s like watching an actress step onto the stage, Kara thinks. Even without wearing heels, Lena’s gained several inches - not that she would need to appear any taller than she is to be commanding. Still wearing her work clothes - tailored grey pants and a white button up shirt with the sleeves rolled at the elbows - with her chin slanted just so, she cuts an impressive figure without effort. 

There is a liveliness to her gaze that wasn’t there moments ago, and Kara feels vulnerable under her stare, but fearless all the same. Her best friend is still there - just hidden behind the dominant. 

Without speaking, Lena opens her arms, and Kara steps into the safe confines of her body with a whimper.

“You’re safe now.” She tucks her head under the severe line of Lena’s jaw, ear pressed to the steady thump, thump, thump of her friend’s heart. “You’re safe, and whoever left you like this can’t hurt you anymore.” 

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

Kara would have stayed that way forever, but the bathroom tiles are terribly cold under the soles of her bare feet, and the towel sticks to her back in places. 

Lena must be sensing her discomfort, because she disentangles gently and tucks a rope of Kara’s water-clogged hair behind her ear. The gesture is so tender it has her melting on the spot all over again. 

“Why don’t we get you somewhere warmer?” Lena tilts her head toward the hallway. “I’d like to take a look at your back, too, if that’s okay.”

“Alright.” Kara agrees, feeling injured in a way that goes beyond the physical. 

When it becomes clear she’s being led to Lena’s bedroom, Kara balks a little. Of course she’s been in there several times - but not like this. It’s like she’s seeing it for the first time, and as she notices new things she never paid attention to before, it’s obvious to her that Lena is an altogether different kind of dominant. 

Veronica’s bedroom was all hard lines and monochromes, color intentionally banished from the space. Dove grey, steel-finished furniture and black sheets - everything felt arctic and removed. Sterilized and obscene at the same time - like the row of canes, wooden paddles and floggers hanging from the wall in ordered rows. 

Kara can’t deny the overall effect the room had on her. Its elegance, albeit debased, made her feel nervous. Unbalanced and out of place. Insignificant - which she supposes is precisely how Veronica wanted her to be. 

Lena’s dominance, on the other hand, is not on full display. The room is cozy and lived in, the unmade bed still showing an indent on the spot where Lena slept. Her nightstand is buried under a pile of books, and more are stacked on a nearby chair. Kara can’t think of a time when Lena isn’t reading something, and the sight teases her lips into a smile. 

It’s not untidy, exactly, but shows who Lena _is_ in a way that’s meant to ease someone to their knees.

Whatever instruments Lena chooses to employ beyond that point are kept firmly out of sight.

Yes. Lena’s dominance is decidedly different. Kara discovers signs of it in the determined expression Lena is wearing, tongue pushed between her teeth as she studies her with careful eyes. Measuring and assessing. Lena’s hands on Kara’s hips are commanding as she steers her to the bed, but somehow manage to stay gentle. There’s a cadence to Lena’s every action; a solid, tangible slowness. Like she’s dealing with a wild animal blinded by headlights, and expecting it will bolt at any minute - which is not far from the truth. 

The scene she’d looked in on without meaning to had been misleading, painting a picture in her head that could not be furthest from the truth. Lena is none of the things Kara had imagined her to be. She’s not hurried like Veronica, who'd grown frantic and violent when Kara didn’t promptly give her what she wanted.

Lena is the embodiment of control.

Kara blinks.

“Let’s get you into bed now.” Lena’s steady hands are a big help, but the wounds on her back pull as she climbs gracelessly on the mattress, making her hiss. “Lay on your stomach, darling.” Lena gently grasps her hips and maneuvers her the way she wants her to lie down. “Just so.” 

Lena’s dominance surprises her when her friend makes sure the most intimate parts of her are covered by the duvet before gingerly peeling the towel off her back.

She goes very, very still right after that. So immobile that, despite knowing she’s kneeling on the bed beside her, Kara has to look. Just to make sure she is still there. 

Lena is the space between the lightning that heralds an incoming storm and the first crack of thunder. Her eyes are cold and burn like ice, her breath held between her teeth a bit longer than is necessary. Quiet anger straightens her spine, barely kept in check between balled fists, but when she catches Kara watching, she immediately unravels. She softens, and runs a hand through Kara’s drying hair - soothing her.

“Be a good girl now and lay still while I take a closer look.” Her voice is a low purr, filled with authority.

“Yes, Miss.” 

Kara sighs the words into the pillow, then realizing what she’s said, she sucks in a breath and twists around a little to apologize. 

Lena’s expression remains studiously blank, but her eyelids flutter, and her eyes are wild and bright. Something disturbs those perfect depths, a part of her that had been mostly dormant. It shows itself, now, for the first time, and the air between them is unmoving - heavy with unspoken possibility. 

A moment later, Lena’s fingertips are slipping along her shoulder blades and she slumps into the bed, all thoughts of an apology forgotten. 

“There’s some cuts I need to clean,” Lena murmurs against the back of her neck. “It will hurt a bit, but you’re being very brave. Can you be brave a little longer?”

Kara nods a yes into the pillow, not feeling brave at all.

“Dearest, I need you to use your words right now, so that nothing can be misconstrued. Can you be brave some more?” Lena asks again, her fingers dipping lower - along the ruined ridges of Kara’s wounded spine.

“Yes,” Kara holds her gaze and adds, chest full of trepidation, “for you I can.”

Lena stills again, round-eyed and taken aback. It makes Kara want to apologize all over again, but the next thing she knows, Lena has bowed her head slightly in acceptance, and is moving off the bed to gather what she needs.

“Good girl.”

She throws the words over a retreating shoulder, almost like an afterthought. 

They touch Kara intimately, as though Lena had plunged two fingers inside of her, and she has to bite her lower lip to keep herself from whimpering. 

Lena disappears somewhere out of view, but Kara hears the sound of drawers opening and closing at her back. She’s tempted to turn around and look, hoping to be rewarded by the stolen sight of spreader bars and handcuffs, single tails and anal plugs. 

Eyes screwed tightly shut and ears on fire, she nuzzles further into the nest of pillows, staving off the inclination. 

“Be still now.” 

Just as she had warned, whatever Lena’s using on her back _hurts_. It stings almost as much as the blows had, but the pain is momentary and dwindles into a cooling sensation over her mistreated skin.

“Kara.” Lena’s voice is shaking a little. Her fingers work more ointment into Kara’s skin, smelling of chamomile and other herbs she cannot name. “Do you remember what this… person used on you?” She audibly strains over the word “person,” and Kara hears the unsaid profanity beneath. 

“I…” 

The riding crop stands out clearly enough, but the more she tries to find an answer, the less Kara remembers. There’s a block of time she can’t recall, one part of her afternoon that’s unequivocally _empty_.

“I’m not sure,” she admits, mad at her own lapse. “I can’t remember everything.”

“It’s quite alright,” Lena hushes, resting a warm hand on one of the few spots that doesn’t hurt. “Does it ache anywhere else?” she adds, deft in switching topics. 

“She bent me over one knee and clocked my ass when I didn’t get on the bed fast enough for her liking.” Kara had relished that, but that had been at the beginning of their session. Veronica’s blows had been restrained then, and after, she’d spent some time stroking the reddened skin while kissing Kara with abandon. It left her breathless, dripping with need. 

It didn’t last, though. 

“I enjoyed that…” Kara confesses, afraid that now Lena won’t like her very much at all. “But, then…” Her chest hitches on a sob.

“Take your time.” Carefully, Lena pulls her into the circle of her arms and holds her there. “You don’t have to say anything else unless you want to.” 

“She asked me to choose something from the rack on the wall. There were so many things I didn’t even know the name of… But there was a farmer in Midvale that had horses he let me and Alex ride. The crop seemed harmless enough.” She shrugs, apologetically.

Lena’s cheeks puff out.

“Where?” 

“My ass again. And… and between my legs. She…” Kara’s memories stop there, where the pain starts. “It hurts there. A lot. My butt isn’t so bad, though.” She feels obligated to mitigate the damage done, and can’t say why. 

“Can I check?” 

“Yes.”

“Turn around, please. Just make sure to cover your...uhm…” She’s plain old Lena now, her face tinged slightly pink. Heat bubbles inside Kara, too, and perhaps it is the same kind. 

She dutifully obeys, and once her thighs are parted for Lena’s inspection, the pink drains away and the dominant is securely back in place. 

An unhappy frown has gathered on her brow, and her eyes are fiercely protective. She is saying nothing, but her lips move, forming the same words over and over.

_That bitch._

There’s a careful balance, Kara thinks, in being made to feel small but not diminished. She’d call it magic, or a miracle, but that would rob it of its thoughtfulness. Right now, Lena is making her feel very small, but precious nonetheless. Elevated. 

The way she’s holding on to self-control, by the skin of her teeth so as not to scare Kara further, is admirable. It takes minutes this time, but finally Lena’s jaws unclench, and she offers Kara a reassuring smile. 

It’s luminous like sunlight, and soon obscured by the veil of Kara’s tears. On the inside of her thighs, the salve is burning gasoline. 

She screams, blacks out perhaps, and when she comes to, she’s tucked under the blankets to her chin, with Lena holding her again. 

“Shhh.” Lena rocks her gently, back and forth. “It’s over now, and you did so well. My good girl. My brave one.” 

Kara burrows deeper into her arms, until the tears let up and all she feels is tired. 

“She never checked in with me,” she croaks, fighting with exhaustion. “Not the way you did. I had set limits, and to be completely honest, I can’t tell whether she did more than we’d agreed. But she never paused to make sure I was still… present.” A yawn nearly breaks her face in two. 

“I can’t speak on the scene, because I don’t know what you’d agreed on, and I don’t want to unless you decide you want to share.” The barbs in Lena’s words are somewhat dulled by the fact she’s stroking Kara’s hair. “But what she did to you… Kara, it has all the hallmarks of a sadist. She may style herself a dominant, but she’s nothing more than a pretender. Carrying on like nothing happened while you had zoned out is one hell of a red flag.” 

“So. What do I do now?” 

“Well, if you never wanted anything to do with…” Lena gestures vaguely. “All of this, really, I wouldn’t blame you.” She means the kneeling, and the ropes, and the whisper of leather against skin. Her laugh is kind, a little nervous, and something inside of Kara reverberates with echoes. “But, if the day comes that you want to try again, well…”

“Yes?” Drowsiness evaporating, Kara raises her head to gaze in Lena’s eyes. She doesn’t know what she expected to see there, but she finds hope. 

“Just…” Lena wets her lips. “Come to me. I could show you.” 

*************

The next morning, Kara wakes alone. 

The spot Lena occupied is still warm, and the reassuring noise of cutlery being set out for breakfast floats in from the half-open door, followed by the enticing smell of pancakes.

She’d feared Lena had left, but that’s a silly thought. Lena will never leave like that, without a word. Kara’s sure of it.

Burying her face in a pillow that smells faintly of Lena’s discreet perfume, Kara takes a moment to reacquaint herself with pain. Her injuries make themselves known one by one as she stirs, but the pain has dulled to a bearable ache. Something she can push to the back of her mind and ignore as she goes through her day. 

Her back is the worst, but the salve Lena rubbed into her bruises has gone a long way in making her feel better. That and the gentle firmness with which Lena pulled her from the shock she’d slipped into. 

Finally, compelled by her growling stomach, Kara brings herself to stand. It’s not as bad as she’d anticipated, and again, she offers silent thanks to Lena and her expert hands.

She finds her in the kitchen, tending to the stove. 

Focused on flipping a batch of pancakes before they burn, her friend doesn’t notice her immediately, and Kara edges closer, studying her.

Lena is wearing the shirt from the night before, buttons undone, and only underwear beneath. Being roommates meant they often bumped into each other in different stages of undress, but Lena had never let herself be this casually _bare_ in Kara’s presence. 

Something has shifted between them, Kara is sure, but she can’t tell in which direction yet. 

“You’re up.” Lena turns and hands her a full plate. Her smile is genuine. “Figured pancakes would lure you out of bed.”

“I’m starving, and your pancakes are to die for.” 

“I’ll make another batch after this one, if you’re still hungry.” 

The conversation is so mundane Kara can’t avoid thinking that the previous night was just a fever dream. But there is a pillow on her favorite chair, and Lena’s eyes linger on her more than usual while they eat.

“I would like it if…” Kara pauses between bites and takes a shaky breath. In her chest, her heart beats a hundred miles an hour. “I would like it if you showed me how it’s meant to be, sometime? Like - like you said you could, last night.” 

Lena looks at her from across the table, her lips pursed. Kara wills her to speak, to say anything at all, but all she’s getting in return is wide-eyed silence. Her shoulders slump, and tears begin to prick at the corners of her eyes - maybe she misunderstood. 

Just when she’s about to open her mouth and apologize, Lena leans forward, a hand creeping toward Kara’s until her fingers are curled atop it, protectively. Her palm is rough with callouses and the thought that it must be the flogger’s handle to have put them there sets Kara’s blood alight. 

“I could.” Lena pulls in a breath before continuing, a deep inhale that makes her ribs flare out and her nose twitch. “In fact, I would like to very much.” Their gazes meet, and, in the early morning light, Lena’s eyes are hunter green and earnest. 

Full of promise. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara and Lena explore their relationship, but Veronica's appearance threatens a fragile equilibrium.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's more to come (I'm quite fond of the story) and I hope you won't mind. Enjoy.
> 
> \- Dren

Things have shifted between them.

Kara sees it most when it comes to the little things they’ve started doing for each other. In the cup of herbal tea Lena brews for her on nights where she is too restless to sleep — without Kara even mentioning she is. Or in the piles of clothing belonging to the other that have started to appear in their respective bedrooms. In the effort she herself is making in learning to cook Italian food from books borrowed at the library — simply because it’s Lena’s favorite. And, although her first attempt at lasagna looks more like nuclear sludge than the actual thing, Lena nearly licks the dish clean — and pecks her on the cheek before taking the leftovers to work the following day. 

But, what Kara notices more than she ever did before, is Lena’s kindness.

Of course, she’s always been aware of Lena’s intrinsic empathy — the instinct driving her to help where help is needed, without ever being asked. Her thoughtfulness has no room for pity; simply, Lena makes the conscious effort to be good because it’s the right thing to do. There’s a cemented set of rules known only to her that she chooses to live by. Thus, it comes to be that her pockets always jingle with spare change for the men and women which society kicked to the curb. She is the first to give up her seat on public transport, and always pays a breakfast forward whenever she and Kara go for brunch over the weekends. 

Kara’s witnessed Lena’s compassion countless times, but it lingers differently on her mind when she’s the center of it all. It’s a foreign feeling, one she’s not accustomed to. One that leaves a glowing warmth inside her chest.

It isn’t that Lena changed the way she acts toward her, Kara realizes one evening while she’s desperately trying to avoid burning the chicken cacciatore piping on the stove. The change resides in  _ her _ .

She has accepted she’s in love with her best friend, and finally understands that Lena loves her, too. 

It makes sense, in retrospect, that Kara missed the signs — she’d never looked in the right place to begin with. 

Lena’s love is subdued and quiet, made of small acts rather than the big words romance movies are built out of. Some of it is tangible, like the aforementioned cup of tea, but at times, it shows itself in subtler ways. There’s the gentle nudging, for example; the clever way Lena offers guidance when Kara is feeling wayward or undecided. On days in which everything’s a challenge, Lena is her tether. The anchor Kara clings to when life causes her to falter. 

Somehow, Kara is sure that sort of fetter isn’t offered to the women kneeling naked at Lena’s feet. Of whom there had been none. 

Not since the night Kara limped home from Veronica’s about a month ago. 

Even though they are in all but name, neither of them has mentioned the word  _ girlfriends.  _ They have lunch dates whenever work allows, and Friday night has become Movie Night by tacit accord. More often than not, Kara falls asleep in Lena’s bed, cuddled up into her side. And when she wakes, she smells like one of Lena’s scented soaps — lavender is her favorite. 

Sometimes, especially if she pretends she’s not hearing her alarm, Lena brushes a soft kiss against her brow. Kara wishes Lena would do more, kiss her elsewhere, too, but whenever she hypes herself up to ask, her mouth runs dry. Lena looks at her with darkened, pensive eyes — but never offers.

As for the ropes and floggers and the cured leather tawse Kara is convinced Lena possesses, they remain inside the wardrobe. Out of sight, but always on her mind.

So that’s where they are left as the dreadful anniversary approaches on the calendar. Stuck. Girlfriends – but not quite – and not yet lovers. 

Kara is frustrated to no end, and as usual, the fault lies solely with her. 

Late autumn has given way to winter, and the days have been cut short as if severed by an axe. When Kara heads to work, it is still dark, and by the time she makes it out, it’s dark again. On the weekends, the sun denies itself, hidden behind dour clouds that promise the first flurries of the season, and when it deigns itself to show, it’s a weak thing lacking any warmth. 

Kara’s mood darkens with the shortening of the days. She grows sullen and withdrawn, and tiredness becomes a constant companion. Her limbs are leaden with fatigue, her bones beset by the deep aches one usually feels at the onset of a flu. Getting out of bed — even when she needs to in order to reach the office — gets hard, then harder still. 

She recognizes all the signs for what they are, and knows she stands at the precipice of spiraling depression, but knowledge doesn’t pull her from the brink. If anything, once the thought is fully realized, Kara starts to think it may not be so bad to let herself float downward for a while. The numbness and the apathy must certainly be better than the nightmares that rouse in the dead of night, Veronica’s smug face floating above hers for the handful of seconds it takes Kara to fully come awake. 

The scene repeats once or twice a week — sometimes Lena wakes up next to her and pulls her close without a word — but when she can, Kara sneaks out of bed and spends the rest of the night on the couch or in her own bed, embarrassed by her weakness. 

There, she scrapes together what little sleep she can, but her slumber is never deep and her dreams are always haunted. Sometimes she’s back in Veronica’s apartment, tied to her bed. Other times she’s drifting along corridors she doesn’t recognize, looking for something firmly out of reach with a faceless sense of danger at her back. 

When she falls asleep on the couch, she usually wakes wrapped up in a blanket, with the smell of fresh coffee in the air and Lena looking down at her with a soft smile. 

If Lena is concerned for her at all, she does not let on, but Kara is aware she’s being carefully watched. They both stare at her descent like witnesses to a catastrophe — as the anniversary of her date with Veronica looms near, disaster seems inevitable. It’s like being inside a car launched at full speed toward a wall, and Kara is too petrified to hit the brakes. Too scared of being considered a burden to ask Lena to do it in her stead. 

The day Kara perversedly decided to mark on her wall calendar — perhaps to punish herself further for a lapse in judgment she can’t help but feel guilty about — dawns greyer than the rest. The air, when she opens the window minutes after she’s climbed out the warm nest of her bed, feels thick and bloated. Uncomfortable on her skin, and not due to the cold that causes her to shiver in her pajamas. It’s as though the weather is fighting with itself, braced on the cusp of a storm, but not quite there. That’s how Kara is feeling, too. Stuffed with indecision, maudlin and unsure of what the day will bring her way. 

She briefly contemplates heading back to bed — she did take the day off, after all — but then the smell of coffee hits her nose. 

“I thought you’d be at work already,” she says hesitantly when she ventures in the kitchen. 

“The forecast for today says it’ll start to snow heavily later on. Didn’t want to get stuck in rush hour traffic. You know how people forget to drive when the weather’s bad.” 

Lena commutes to work using the metro, but Kara chooses not to point that out. The reason behind her working from home is clear to them both, and as always, Kara is taken aback by the fact Lena reads her like an open book.

It has nothing to do with Lena being a dominant, and everything to do with her being an extraordinary, compassionate individual. 

Kara helps herself to breakfast — scones with jam and clotted cream Lena had picked up earlier from their favorite bakery — and settles down with a book, but is unable to concentrate for long. 

Soon enough, she’s shooting Lena careful sidelong glances, to which the other seems totally oblivious. 

Lena is entirely focused on her work, and Kara takes advantage. Her would-be girlfriend hides it well, but the last few weeks have taken a toll on her as well. Lit up by the laptop screen, her face is waxen, gaunt and smudges of black shadow her eyes. 

Guilt gathers inside Kara heavier than cement, until her lungs are petrified with it. She’s been so busy wallowing in self-pity, she’s failed to notice how her behavior has affected the one she loves. 

She wracks her brains for a solution, something nice that she can do to repay Lena for her kindness. She knows that whatever she comes up with will never be enough, but has to try regardless. 

In the end, she settles for a small thing she’s sure Lena will enjoy. 

During the week, with both of them usuallyworking late in their respective offices to chase down the next deadline, dinner is often takeout and leftovers. And when one of them happens to work from home, Lena does most of the cooking. Kara is slowly improving in that regard, but the way is hard and paved with overdone spaghetti and crisped casseroles. Her first chicken cacciatore stands out as a particular disaster; she had to throw it out pot and all, and the nosy neighbor in 2B called the fire department on her because of the smoke. 

Still, there are a few simple recipes that she has mastered, and the fact that they are Lena’s favorite dishes has absolutely nothing to do with her dogged commitment. 

“I could cook tonight,” she suggests, refilling Lena’s cup with coffee. “Nothing new, or fancy.” She feels that the clarification is in order, considering the fire hazard risks involved. “But I was thinking homemade  _ arrabbiata _ with one of the nice bottles of bordeaux Sam brought us from her trip to France. It could be a date, maybe. I— I mean, if you want.” 

“I’d like that.” Lena’s answering smile is brighter than the sun has been in days. “I’d like that very much.” There’s a pause during which they stare awkwardly at one another, words neither has the guts to say hanging in the air. “That’s very thoughtful of you, Kara,“ Lena adds after a while, almost too softly to be heard. “Maybe we can grab a bite at Noonan’s for my lunch break, and pick up whatever you may need on the way home?” 

Blinded by Lena’s genuinely happy smile, all Kara manages to do is nod. 

Plans for the day made, her nerves finally settle. The couch would be more comfortable for reading, but she decides to spend the morning at the table next to Lena — quiet as mice sneaking inside a gourmet restaurant, of course — and by the time lunchtime rolls around, she’s more than halfway through her thriller novel. 

Lena shutting off her laptop is the sign it’s time to go, and Kara changes into warm winter clothes at record speed. She’s ready to go so quickly it makes Lena laugh and remark —  _ almost like you have superpowers _ — with a raised eyebrow.

The clear fondness in her tone has Kara flushing to her ears and wondering what sort of dark forbidden magic Lena dabs into in order to make her so thoroughly tongue-tied. Luckily, she’s spared from thinking of an intelligent rebuttal by the first brutal draft of air that hits her squarely in the chest the moment they set their noses outside the apartment complex. 

In the few hours they spent sitting in easygoing silence, the weather had definitely worsened. Already menacing clouds are hanging lower, so much so that the tips of the downtown skyscrapers are shrouded in the roiling mass. 

Noonan’s is only two blocks away from where they live, but the cutting wind makes for hard going, frosty fingers sneaking past Kara’s warmest sweater to chill her to the bone. 

Luckily, it seems most people have been deterred by the foul weather, and the line that can be over a block long in warmer weather is thankfully absent today. 

They are at the counter, Kara perusing the specials of the day while Lena gets her usual, when the door opens at their back. Kara doesn’t know whether it’s the sudden gust of wind hitting her squarely between the shoulder blades that has her turning around, or the unexplainable, wrenching feeling that something is amiss, but  _ she  _ is standing on the threshold, and her blood runs cold.

She tears her eyes away so fast she risks a serious case of whiplash, and pulls her scarf up further to cover half her face. To Lena she says nothing, deciding that the best course of action is to make herself as small as possible. A nothing. A minuscule wallflower that easily fades into the background, so unimportant it doesn’t warrant getting noticed. She feels herself fold inward, but there’s nothing she can do, and above all, she doesn’t want to ruin her and Lena’s day any more than she’s already done with the previous weeks. It wouldn’t be fair. 

Sucking in a breath, Kara forces her jaws to unclench — if she keeps to Lena’s shadow, Veronica won’t notice her. There’s no reason for her to, and in a few moments, they will move away from the counter and sit in one of the booths, and...

“We’ll take everything to go, actually.”

Her behavior, it seems, hasn’t gone unnoticed, and without missing a beat, Lena orders what she knows Kara resorts to when she can’t make up her mind — toasted bagel with smoked salmon and cream cheese, and one of Noonan’s hearty cups of soup for a side dish. 

“Think I may be coming down with a bit of a cold,” Lena continues, handing her credit card to the barista with a friendly smile. “Wouldn’t want to pass it on to the other patrons. You don’t mind eating back at home, do you babe?” 

“Oh, you two are dating?” They come to Noonan’s often enough that the entire staff knows them by name, although the reason for the latter may lie in the generous tips they always make sure to leave for the staff. “That’s amazing!” Nia rings them up, and when she hands over their order, she’s positively beaming.

“Yes, she is,” Lena murmurs softly, nudging Kara with her elbow. Her eyes are full of quiet adoration, and the fog of fear that had wrapped around Kara in a suffocating smog is dissipated. 

She forgets about Veronica for the time it takes them to leave the coffee shop, but little by little the fear returns, pervasive and insidious. 

Back in the safety of their apartment, where, for all intents and purposes, she should be feeling better, Kara is suddenly overwhelmed by a wave of shame. Her mind drowns in the same images that populate her dreams: the rope chafing her skin, the crop falling over and over until her skin is split from it and bleeding.

How could she have thought that it was normal to enjoy something so sick? 

Like an insect slowly sinking into resin, she fights helplessly against the mortification sticking to her skin, but it closes over her head. It fills her lungs until the air within her chest is replaced by something acrid and unbreathable. It drags her under. 

The rest of the day goes by in a haze. She doesn’t remember having lunch, but she must have because she finds herself at the sink washing dishes while Lena puts the leftovers away. 

For her part, Lena doesn’t ask what prompted the reaction, limiting herself to staying by Kara’s side without hovering or suffocating. 

In the end, contrary to what they’d planned, it’s Lena who cooks dinner, but this time, every bite Kara tries to take tastes like ash. 

They’re sitting on the couch with Netflix as the background noise of choice when she shyly reaches for Lena’s hand and twines their fingers together. 

“I think I need to see a therapist.” It’s the hardest thing she’s ever had to say, but the crisis of the day has opened her eyes to it. She can’t go on like this; something has to give, and Kara would rather it was not her sanity or her rapport with Lena. 

“I meant it when I said you are amazing,” Lena whispers in her hair, squeezing her hand. How she can mold herself into the exact thing Kara needs at any point in time remains a mystery she’s sure she’ll never solve. “And I know you don’t see it right now, but I hope you can believe my words.”

Too choked up to speak, Kara nods and lays her head on Lena’s shoulder, letting herself sink into the warm body next to hers.

“I’ll come with you to the appointments if you want,” Lena resumes after a pause, during which they simply listen to the other’s heart. “So you’ll know that no matter how grim or hard it gets, there’s something waiting for you right outside the door.” 

In that moment, Kara could throw her arms around her, kiss her breath away.

In fact she does.

************

Winter reluctantly cedes its spot to spring, and as the days grow longer and the weather warms, so does Kara plant her feet more firmly onto the path of her recovery. Therapy helps a lot, but she’s aware she wouldn’t have found the courage to face any of it without Lena. 

It’s not a case of codependency, rather, a healthy relationship with Lena is a matter of openness and respect. Dignity that ought to be given both to Lena and herself, which is something that she can’t guarantee until she fixes the thing that Veronica so thoroughly broke. 

It’s a slow process, but when the time for open windows and evening chats sitting on the balcony arrives, Kara is ready to bring up the offer Lena made on the night everything started. The smile Lena regals her with as a reply tells her that’s not been on her mind alone, and thus the terms for an introductory scene are negotiated, and a time for it is agreed upon.

_ Pick out something you feel comfortable in _ , Lena had suggested, before prompting Kara toward the bedroom.  _ I will be waiting.  _

Easier said than done. 

She’s still agonizing over the outfit - soft grey sweatpants and a shirt she particularly likes the feel of on her skin - as she makes her hesitant way back into the living room. 

Kara is grateful to Lena for choosing their living room as the setting for tonight. In the living room, which is the space where they have their movie nights and quietly read books in one another’s company, things don’t necessarily have to be sexual. 

Her own bedroom, on the other hand, is the place of Kara’s wet dreams. Lena features heavily in them - accompanied sometimes by Kara’s latest celebrity crush, but to be fair, it’s been just Lena lately. 

Lena tying her to the bed before she edges her for hours. Lena striking Kara’s upturned ass as she lays naked across her lap and makes a slickened mess of it. Lena simply being Lena and not Miss - and in those dreams, it’s Kara making love to her. 

As for Lena’s bedroom, that’s Kara’s place of safety. The one she falls asleep in when nightmares torture late at night, and while she’s wanted to have sex with Lena on that sea of dark blue sheets, that isn’t remotely on her mind tonight. 

But Kara had been afraid she couldn’t separate the two, the sex and the submission, and Lena, who can guess what mood she’s in even before it befalls her, weights her with one look and promptly suggests the living room. 

When she makes it to the stage itself, Kara finds it changed. 

The coffee table has been moved to one side, so that the space in front of the couch is free for them to use. The books and assortment of electronics which always station on it are gone as well, replaced by a full pitcher of water and two cups. 

The curtains, cream-colored heavy ones they picked together, have been drawn to give them privacy, and the hardwood floor is hidden by a fluffy-looking rug that’s usually not there. 

Kara gets a sense of coziness from the ensemble, of texture. With the street below the apartment, and the traffic of rush hour shut firmly outside, it’s easy to believe that the living room exists somewhere liminal. A transient space, a site of transformation. 

Kara walks across the threshold and leaves her worries at the door; she has no need to be Kara here unless she wants to, there’s nothing complex she is expected to perform, save act as she’s instructed. 

For herself, Lena has chosen a flowing robe, which seems to Kara’s inexperienced eyes, a cross between a negligé and a housecoat. It shimmers silken under the amber glow of Lena’s reading lamp on the side table, its color a green so dark it appears black when she stays very still. 

The rest of the lights burn low as well, or have been shut off entirely, plunging them in an indoor rendition of soft dusk. 

Lena’s attire is striking in its simplicity, and Kara has the time to feel woefully underdressed. 

Then, Lena stands to greet her, and the robe sways with her, gaping slightly at the front. 

In the play of light and edgeless shadows, Kara has a glimpse  of a pale collarbone and a low cut lace-trimmed shirt , and her mind goes blank. 

It’s obvious that the word  _ comfortable  _ was meant about them both. 

The robe settles, slender fingers cinch the belt around Lena’s waist more tightly, and the world lurches into motion once again. 

“See something you like,  _ darling _ ?” It’s the inflection of that last word, and the way Lena holds herself that signal to Kara their little game is on. 

“Yes, Miss,” she answers promptly, dipping her head to hide a furious blush. She feels extremely vulnerable, but not in a bad way. Exposed, as though Lena had ordered her to strip. Regrettably, that’s not in the cards tonight — but a girl can hope.

“None of that now.” Lena chucks her lightly under the chin, and Kara’s eyes rise up to meet hers. “You’re too pretty to hide your face that way.” There’s a note of chastisement in Lena’s tone, but the softness still remains somewhere underneath. Normally Lena is steel wrapped up in velvet, but for the purpose of the scene, the velvet has been stripped away, and the steel takes center stage — dangerous, but  _ oh, _ so enticing. 

“Kneel for me, darling.” Lena sits herself down on the couch, and points to a pillow that has been placed on the floor at her feet for that specific task. 

Kara silently complies, and before she can stop herself, her brain drifts back to the night she spent at Veronica’s. She had not been offered a pillow on which to kneel, only the cold tiles of the floor, and her knees had been bruised for days after the other dominant was done with her. She’d been a murder victim resurrected from the crime scene and condemned to endlessly relieve her own demise.

“Stop.” A finger smoothes the wrinkles that have formed upon her brow. “You are safe, and  _ she  _ has no place here.” Lena grasps her by her chin again, but while her hold is firm, her hand is never cruel. “There’s only us. And you belong to me, little one. Never forget that.” 

There’s fierceness etched on the lines of her face, a protectiveness that causes Kara’s chest to fill with warmth. If any other person tried to tell her she belonged to them, Kara would react most violently, maybe be repulsed, but Lena’s throwing her a safety net. She clings to it and makes it hers, and suddenly she isn’t Kara any longer. All she is, is Mistress’s very good girl. Miss’s obedient, eager darling, sometimes her pet and — should the mood or scene demand it — perhaps a needy little slut as well. 

While watching the storm break loose over Lena’s features, Kara understands her Mistress had wilfully ignored Veronica back at the coffee shop. She sees the murderous instinct now, the way Lena is glaring daggers over her shoulder as if the object of her enmity had just materialized out of thin air. Kara loves her all the more for choosing not to bring attention to her fear in public, where it would have hurt the most. 

“I’d like for you to close your eyes now.” Lena’s hand is carding through her hair, warm against her scalp. The contact leaves Kara’s skin all tingly and hot, and when Mistress pulls away a little, she whimpers at the loss.

The seriousness in Lena’s intent eyes helps her refocus. 

“Yes, Miss.” Even though she’d like nothing better than to gaze at Lena indefinitely, Kara shuts her eyes, and is almost immediately rewarded by light touches. On the crown of her head, her shoulders, along her throat. 

When something is snapped shut around her right wrist, however, her eyes fly open in surprise. 

“Eyes closed,” Mistress Lena warns, voice flinty. 

Once Kara has obeyed, the touching resumes. There’s nothing sexual about it, but under Lena’s expert hands she becomes more aware of her body than she’s ever been before. She sinks down in a daze, and when Mistress guides her left hand to her right wrist, she offers no resistance. 

Her fingertips brush strips of supple leather, and she exhales in recognition — a bracelet. 

“I want you to wear this when you’re out.” Mistress shifts, and all of a sudden Kara’s head is cushioned against her thigh. “It’s not a symbol of ownership, at least not yet, but a little object to help you focus when you feel lost or upset and I’m not around.” Her hand moves back to Kara’s cheek, stroking it tenderly. “I won’t always be able to be around, little one, do you understand that?” 

“I do, Mistress.” At the cost of risking Lena’s wrath, Kara opens her eyes and meets her Miss’s glinting gaze with a steady one of her own. “You want me to learn how to feel safe on my own.” 

“Yes.” Lena beams down at her, and before she realizes what she’s doing, Kara’s rubbing her cheek against Mistress’s robed thigh. “Very good. And we can practice together.” She motions with a finger, and Kara dutifully shuts her eyes again. 

Lately, it’s been a hard thing to do, closing her eyes, but she discovers that with Lena at her side, the darkness is not so scary. 

Kara had never admitted it fully, but she’d begun to fear the approach of nightfall, wary of the nightmares that waited for her the moment she settled down to sleep. This kind of darkness feels different; she floats in it, weightless like a piece of wood traveling downstream toward the sea. Lena talks to her throughout the journey, her voice modulated to a hypnotic monotone. She’s told to breathe, to count each time her lungs expand and then contract, to count again. Over and over until the rhythm becomes something she can follow naturally, and by the time she realizes Lena has stopped counting every breath, the tempo is engraved upon her bones. 

When Mistress guides her steadily back to reality, Kara resurfaces feeling better than she has in ages. Boneless and fluid, as though a big weight has been lifted off her shoulders. 

“You did very well, Kara.” Lena is just Lena now, but the praise manages to melt Kara regardless. She is pulled onto the couch, and then for good measure, up onto Lena’s lap. Her fingers toy with the hem of Kara’s shirt, grazing the skin underneath, and Kara shivers. 

“Perhaps next time we could try something more?” she asks, a little out of breath. “Something a bit more— more—” 

“More like this?” Lena kisses her, hungrily so, teeth ghosting along her lower lip before she sucks on it with greed. 

“Yes.” Arousal pools between her legs, and Kara squirms, wondering whether Lena can feel how wet she’s making her. “Precisely like that.” 

The glimmer of mischief in Lena’s eyes is enough answer, and she burrows more firmly against her girlfriend’s chest, red to her ears. 

“I think something can be definitely arranged.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The absence of smut and a more explicit BDSM scene was a conscious choice I made, in order to spend some time exploring the evolution of their dynamic.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara keeps on healing. Lena keeps on helping. Things start to get sexier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT: This chapter is rated a solid E for the end part!
> 
> And we're back! I don't know when the next update will be but have this one for now.
> 
> \- Dren. 
> 
> PS: there's a lot of people spewing untrue things on BDSM out there to try and push unhealthy dynamics on the unwary - PLEASE always do your research. Set your boundaries, and if anyone tries to push past them, run like the wind.

It is like a reverse Indian summer, Kara thinks with a shiver. 

The foul weather has been with them for two weeks solid now, and the overcast skies show no sign of improvement. Dark, angry clouds bloated with rain cast the world into a state of perennial dusk, and the dazzling view they can normally enjoy from their balcony in fairer weather is barely visible. Swathed in the dense fog blowing in from the river. 

The wind came first. It blew away newspapers and stole hats, as mischievous as a child. In the countryside, where there were no tall buildings to slow its advance, it was a raging cavalcade that snatched up quite a few shingled roofs — Kara had been the one to cover that particular story. 

After the wind died down, they had rain. Sheets of it driving against windows, gurgling down the copper gutters until they were overflowed, turning the roads outside into rivers too deep to safely negotiate. 

"It really doesn't feel like summer," she comments, pulling the curtains shut to hide the dismal view. From somewhere around the kitchen table comes a distracted ‘ _ mmm _ ’ and the furious clicking of Lena’s laptop keyboard. 

With a sigh, Kara returns to her own seat where a pile of unedited articles is calling her name. She envies Lena for her quiet focus — her favorite green-eyed brooder can somehow sit still for hours, eyes darting across the screen as she switches between quarterly reports and budget spreadsheets like an absolute madwoman pitted in a race against the setting sun. 

They are like night and day in that regard — when she works from home, the trajectory of Kara’s productivity is a tragic downward curve. She does her best to concentrate, but what’s easy in the hubbub of the office becomes a Sisyphean task at home. The apartment has a distinct set of sounds she intimately knows, and yet her attention strays each time she hears one. 

They’ve been cooped up for a few days now, following the City Council’s directives. Everyone who’s able has to work from home, to leave the roads as free as possible for the to and fro of the emergency vehicles. The neighborhoods closest to the river are the ones bearing the brunt of the storm, and Kara has never been more grateful that their salaries allow them to afford a decent-sized apartment away from the flatlands. 

She knows she’s being a tad dramatic, but it kind of feels like quarantine. 

“Kara, darling, you’re fidgeting,” Lena states without taking her eyes off the screen. 

“Am not!” 

“Are, too.” Lena’s voice is mirthful, and she’s failing to push down a smile. “Restless?” 

Emerald green eyes flick up to hers then, and they are all too knowing. 

“A little.” 

Lena’s stare is glittering and warm, makes her squirm into the chair while heat pools inside her belly. Kara inhales, dragging the air in through her front teeth like smoke from a lit cigarette. “I feel a bit…” 

“A bit like the apartment is suddenly too small? Me, too.” Lena’s gaze turns inward and she nibbles at her lower lip distractedly, the way she does when a thought jumps to the front of her mind. Kara leans forward, immediately fascinated. 

“Maybe we can figure out a way to make this forced indoor time more interesting?” 

It’s the lilt of Lena’s voice, or perhaps the way she openly stares at Kara’s bare wrist, resting atop the table. She doesn’t wear the leather cuff inside the house, or when they are together — like Lena said when giving it to her, it’s not yet meant as a symbol of her ownership — but Kara mentioned once in passing that she’d also like to wear it as a sign she’s in the mood for play. 

The way Lena’s eyes linger on her now, how they smolder darkly at the edges, is enough to tell her Lena’s thoughts and hers are travelling along parallel lines.

The bracelet was given to her two months prior, and they’ve really not done much in the way of play or sex since then. Therapy has been diligently attended once a week, and even though she doesn’t feel remotely done with it, Kara can safely assert that sessions don’t leave her crying quite as often. Healing is a big word to think of, and she’s not really sure where she stands in regards to it, but she’s not bleeding anymore. Her nights aren’t as restless. 

She’s brought up the Dom/sub dynamic with her therapist, and if Doctor Zhang was not familiar with that world in the beginning, she had been quick to bring herself up to speed. 

“How do I know I’ll be ready to try it again?” Kara asks during one of their last sessions. “Or for intimacy that involves more than sharing my girlfriend’s bed and cuddles on the couch?” 

It’s a beautiful summer day, and they’re sitting on the terrace in the study portion of her therapist’s house. 

Kara likes it when they can talk outside the best. Doctor Zhang sure does love her plants, and sitting there on the recliner is like being surrounded by a miniature jungle, which has somehow found a way to grow inside the suburban home. Wedges of sky are visible overhead, so perfectly blue they look false. Painted just for the occasion. 

“I’m afraid there’s no road sign to let you know you have arrived, Kara, not in this case. Overcoming trauma is a lifelong journey. Things will get better, it will hurt less, but you’ll never really stop dealing with it.” 

Kara slouches in her seat, shoulders sagging. 

“No, no. None of that now.” Dr. Zhang’s voice never rises above a gentle murmur. In fact, Kara isn’t sure the minute woman is capable of the hot-headed sort of anger common to most people. “Think about it for a moment. When you first came to me, how often were you woken up by nightmares?” 

“Two times a week, at least. Sometimes more.” Kara frowns, feeling lost. “I don’t see—” 

“Humor me, please.” There’s teacups on the coffee table in between them, and Dr. Zhang refills them deftly, pushing one toward Kara. She takes it, balancing it on her fingertips. The tea has had a chance to cool now, but even lukewarm, it’s still delicious.

“How often now?” the therapist continues, dark eyes never leaving hers.

Kara blinks, stumped. She stretches her mind back over the past few weeks, and realizes she cannot recall.

“I don’t— I don’t remember. Three weeks? Maybe?” There had been a restless night that far back, but she’d had too many potstickers for dinner. Funny, that she remembers what she ate three weeks ago, and not the last time she dreamt about Veronica Sinclair.

“And what would you call that?” 

“Uhm.” Kara finally sees where this is going. “Progress?” 

“Yes. But you didn’t realize it was even happening, did you? The same goes for your other question. One day you’ll stop associating fear and doubt and hurt with certain things, and open yourself up to them again.” Dr. Zhang raises a finger in warning then, her face stern. “There will be setbacks, but from what you have told me of Lena, you have someone at your side who’s willing to navigate through them with you.”

And every word is true, Kara realizes as she debates her options. Lena watches her with eyes full of infinite levels of patience. Her therapist is right: not only has she found someone who will walk beside her, but who’s willing to adapt to her own pace. 

Having made up her mind, she heads to her bedroom. She’s aware of Lena’s gaze, like a caress down her back, and when she returns to the warmth of the kitchen — shivering from the change in temperature — she finds that the table has been cleared, her laptop and Lena’s pushed to the far side, paperwork piled neatly underneath. 

Without speaking, Kara drags her chair around so that they’re sitting side by side instead of opposite each other. She’s not sure why, but it feels more appropriate this way — intimate, less businesslike. 

The leather bracelet Lena gave her came in its own case, a velvet-line rosewood box inlaid with roses on the lid. The well loved wood, of a rich brown, veined in deep burgundy and black, the somewhat worn interior, speak of an antique piece. Kara’s never worked up the courage to ask Lena how much she paid for it — she has a feeling she’d be kindly rebuffed if she did — but a sense of reverence washes over her whenever she holds it in her hands. 

She sits down, and after one deep inhale that fails to steady her jittery nerves, pushes the box toward Lena. 

“Would you put the bracelet on me, Miss?” she asks, wondering how it’s possible for her voice to have become all gravel road in the time it took her to travel to and from the bedroom. Her eyes stay glued to the table, and fear mounts in her that she’s misinterpreted Lena’s signals. She grimaces a little, her tongue bitter with a nervousness she cannot control. 

“Darling, look at me please.” Lena’s request is firm, but the words are gentle, as are the fingers that play easy along the underside of her wrist, where her pulse is exposed and vulnerable. The touch is fleeting, but Kara is a buzzing power line, and when Lena’s hand brushes her skin, the circuit closes. It’s like Lena’s touching the pulse point at her throat. The steady beat that started up between her legs. 

Kara gasps, and inch by agognized inch, lifts her gaze.

“I know how hard it can be to ask for what we need,” Lena begins evenly, pulling her hand back to flip open the box’s lid. “And I’m proud of you for voicing it. You don’t have to lower your eyes when you ask for what you want. There is nothing you can ask for that’ll make me judge you. There is no need for shame.” The lid  _ thuds  _ against the table, and despite her better instincts, Kara flinches back a little.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Just like that, Miss is stored away, folded into neat boxes for later use, and Lena’s back to being Lena. “I also want you to remember that if you change your mind on something, it’s alright to say so. You’ll never be punished for wanting to stop.”

Kara nods, and this time, when she offers her wrist, she makes sure to hold Lena’s intent gaze with her own. 

The leather slips around her wrist, cool and supple, Lena’s fingers careful as she tightens the strap closed. Then, once the bracelet is secured in place, she twines their fingers, thumb tracing Kara’s knuckles in a soothing rhythm. 

After that, she’s allowed a couple of minutes to acclimate. She’s not worn the bracelet for any length of time — a few times at work, or at the gym — and the weight of it around her wrist is foreign. Not unwelcome, though. It’s just easier to forget about it when it’s not the only thing her mind is focused on. 

“Miss,” Kara wets her lips, unsure how to continue. There’s a question on the tip of her tongue, and it’s a pressing one, but she has to force every word out. “Do you think we can have a talk about boundaries?” 

It’s a subject they’ve touched upon before, but only briefly. Lena’s never pressed her to talk about what she does and doesn’t like, beyond the recounting of that first frightful night when she took care of the cuts inflicted by another. And the small acts of intimacy they share — the kisses and the hugs and the cuddling on the couch — really didn’t warrant it. 

But now Kara thinks she’s ready. The idea of riding crops and rope sends shivers down her spine, that’s true, but they’re anticipatory, and the fear that had her break out in a cold sweat before is missing. Only arousal is bolting through her, like shattering lightning. 

The self-loathing has lessened, too. Her desires don’t leave her feeling dirty, or as though she’s an outlier on what things pertain to sex. The road of her self-exploration may be a very long one, but at least now Kara’s willing to admit she wants to walk that path. 

“Of course we can.” Lena offers her hand, palm up, and Kara takes it. “Actually, I think we should.” 

A look passes between them, and as one, they stand and head toward the living room. 

For Kara, the cream-colored sectional is the most comfortable place in the apartment, after their respective beds. It’s where she and Lena spend their evenings when they’re at home. Reading - the couch is big enough that each of them get to pick their favorite spot — or watching the latest TV series to grab their attention. 

It’s a safe haven, too, if only because it’s where she knelt for Lena the first time. That memory is what she tethered herself to when she couldn’t sleep through an entire night without waking. It’s worn from the revisiting, threadbare at the edges. With Lena’s help, Kara’s ready to make new ones.

Lena leaves her side long enough to go and fuss around the gas fireplace. It takes only a few moments before merry flames spring up in the modern-looking hearth, an incongruous sight in July, certainly, but a necessary one, Kara thinks with a shiver. 

“So much for climate change being fake news,” Lena quips, but Kara’s paying her only half a mind. She’s staring at the couch, lower lip caught between her teeth, wondering if she should sit or kneel for the discussion. She’s at a loss, not knowing what is proper or expected.

Lena senses her dilemma and sits down on the couch, patting the empty spot next to hers. “Unless you prefer my lap, darling?” She quirks an eyebrow, and Kara feels the beginning of a blush creep across her cheeks. She should make up her mind, preferably before her face ends up the same color as a stop sign, but Lena’s words left such an uproar in their wake, Kara ends up stumbling into her, with none of the sensuous grace she’d imagined.

“Or you can fall on me.” A finger pressed against her lips stifles her apologies. “That works, too.” Lena’s hand curls around the base of her neck, just lightly, fingers scratching the soft baby hairs on Kara’s nape. It melts her, and when Lena guides her head down, so that it’s tucked under the sharp line of her jaw, Kara surrenders with a sigh. 

Her eyes slip shut without her being able to prevent it, and for a time, she just sits there, one ear full of Lena’s steady heartbeat, the other lulled by the pattering of rain against the window. The body she’s leaning into is soft and warm, and more heat comes from the fireplace. 

She’s so comfortable and toasty she could stay there forever — until summer returns, at the very least — and Lena seems inclined to indulge her. 

“Kara.” Lena tucks a wayward lock of hair behind her ear. She lingers there a moment longer, fingertips brushing along the edge of the lobe. Kara shivers, startled to find out she’s already on the precipice of subspace.

However, Lena’s using her name now, which means it’s time for the serious talk Kara requested, and if those green eyes of hers stay kind, she’s got that no-nonsense look about her Kara’s seen her use on work-related video calls. 

“I don’t know where to start,” she answers hurriedly, and only Lena’s arm around her waist keeps her from squirming. “Like, I’ve done some research. Dr. Zhang suggested I do if I ever meant to explore certain things with you again, but I don’t know… none of the articles and kink blogs I found mentioned where you’re supposed to start this kind of discussion.” 

It had been frustrating, to say the least. Made her want to pull her hair out.  _ Ten new ways to peg your husband _ this,  _ the use of exotic food in the bedroom _ that — nothing of substance about what really mattered. And what she  _ did _ find read as if it had been ripped right out of  _ Cosmo _ .

“Which, really, why would you write five thousand fucking words about how important consent is, and not open with  _ that _ ?” She’s rambling now, she knows, but it’s like all the words and concepts she’s been steaming herself over for months want out at the same time. Lena listens, looking as though she’s decided Kara is the axis her world revolves around, and that’s what shuts her up in the end. 

She tapers off, aware that her ears must be cherry red, and despite Lena’s earlier statement, hides her burning face against the other woman’s shoulder. 

“Well, I think it’s good that consent is always on our minds whenever we discuss a scene or act on it.” Lena doesn’t say that disregard for consent is what landed Kara in hot soup to begin with, but the subtext is pretty clear. There’s no sternness to her voice, but when Kara dares to lift her head and meet her eyes — the blue-green as unruffled as the surface of a pond during a windless day — she’s reminded of the day they crossed paths with Veronica. 

Lena gives off the same coolness she did then, and now that she can think of her first dominant without wanting to scream, part of Kara regrets they didn’t have a proper showdown. Naturally, she understands Lena acted in her best interest, to spare her from what could have devolved into an ugly scene, but she’s positive that Lena could put Veronica back where she belongs with one hand tied behind her back.

“You mentioned boundaries, Kara. Would you like to tell me which ones you’d like to set? Or if you aren’t sure, what you’d like to try… today for example?” 

As usual, Lena reads her like an open book, bringing her straying thoughts back on the right track without any effort. 

“The second is easier I think.” Kara’s fingers have drifted to the bracelet as she talks, and she absently twists it around and around her wrist, the feeling of the braided leather on her skin helping her stay focused. “The first… well there’s obvious ones,” she stalls, but Lena’s smile is bright. Encouraging, and her hand migrates to Kara’s knee, squeezing it before it rubs up and down her thigh in a soothing manner. 

Lena’s hand is on her thigh, within inches of her — uhm,  _ fuck _ — and damn, Kara’s brain  _ sublimates _ , a phenomenon which she’s sure merits a thirty page article in  _ The Lancet _ .

“Which ones?” Her eyes must have dropped to where Lena’s hand is resting (honestly it’s a miracle they’ve not left her skull entirely), because she moves it back to her knee, away from the danger zone. It's too late for Kara's underwear, though, and she spares an extra moment to bid them farewell.

“Uhm, ugh.” Kara fidgets. “I don’t think I’d like the most violent stuff, like bloodplay. Or the things that involve certain fluids that aren’t…  _ y’know _ .” God, she knows it’s necessary, but why did she ask to talk about it? This conversation is killing her. 

_ Dead of embarrassment _ , the coroner’s notes will read on her autopsy. 

“Take a breath, Kara.” There’s something in Lena’s tone that’s like hot water running down her spine, the way it does when she takes a long shower after a cold day. Her back slowly unclenches. “Do you want to take a break?” 

“No. Just…” Kara reaches out, covering Lena’s hand with hers. She can’t help but notice they fit naturally together, as if they’re just meant to hold hands with one another. “I guess I didn’t take into account how embarrassed I’d feel.” 

“You could always write the rest of your boundaries down, if that would help?” Lena suggests, shifting on the couch to better hold her. “I think the entire process should be about easing you into the dynamic as we explore things together. We’re not on a timeline, or a schedule. We can take all the time we need.” 

_ Her  _ cheeks are pink now, and the green of her eyes has turned a deeper shade, a verdant glen where everything is possible, if only Kara will decide to venture into it. 

Her heart is beating a hundred miles per hour, her thoughts are grains of sand her fingers sift through but can’t hold on to, but she  _ wants _ . 

Even though the thrill of excitement is lined with a touch of cautionary fear, she wants to. 

With Lena. 

“So,” Lena runs a finger up her arm, almost idly. “Why don’t we start with what you think you’d be up for trying?” 

***

“Are you comfortable, darling?” 

Lena’s kneeling on the mattress next to her, checking the knots that tie her wrists to the bed’s headboard. The bed itself is an ocean of navy blue sheets and soft pillows, with her laying squarely in the middle. It’s bigger than the one in her room, big enough for three, really, and without Lena there, Kara would feel a little lost. 

It’s all new and somewhat overwhelming, to be honest. Kara’s still wearing her bra and panties, but the way she’s feeling, she may as well be naked. 

Last time she was in such a state of undress inside this bed, Lena was tending to her bruises, and she’d been too drained and shellshocked to really register the rest. 

“Yes, Miss.” Kara licks her lips, a flush tingling across her bare collarbone. “A bit exposed, maybe.” 

“Too much?” Lena’s eyes flick to the blanket neatly folded at the foot of the bed. It’s odd to have a blanket out at all in the midst of summer, but extreme weather called for desperate measures. 

“No.” Kara watches Lena test the ropes one last time. “I think I’m just getting used to the idea of you seeing me half-naked. Like this.” She pointedly tugs on the restraints. 

“Ah.” Lena’s fingers run along her arms, and she’s suddenly lightheaded. “Because I was about to point out I’ve seen your pretty ass plenty of times, dear.” 

“Accidental mooning doesn’t count, Miss.” Kara’s a tad worried she’s being too cheeky, but Lena beams at her, before settling more comfortably at her side. The atmosphere is different than what she imagined — Kara’s aware of the existence of steel beneath Lena’s gentleness, but it’s clear she’s not to see it yet. Eventually, when the time is right, Lena will make her weep, and she’ll thank her for it. 

Strong hands work knots out of her shoulders, and her body grows loose-limbed in response. There’s something about the care with which Lena is touching her that is absolutely disarming. Kara’s wide awake, keen to experience every sensation Miss will wring from her, but her eyes flutter shut, and she sinks into the pillows with a sigh. 

“Miss, can I ask you a question?” Her voice also sounds distant. Made out of the stuff that powers dreams. It’s hard to put one word behind the other. 

“Of course. What’s on your mind?” 

“We didn’t really talk about your boundaries, Miss. Or your safeword. Do you have any for when, like, well — when  _ you  _ wanna tap out?” 

Lena’s hands, which are now spanning her collarbone, pause. Withdraw entirely. 

There’s a sense of utter stillness coming from her, a total absence of motion. Kara remembers a similar occurrence from when Lena first uncovered the signs of caning along her inner thighs, and recognizes it as Miss’s way to marshal her emotions back into their little boxes. 

Afraid she’s spoken out of turn, that Lena’s mad at her now, Kara opens her eyes. Completely forgetting she’s tied to the bed, she sits up, only to fall back with a groan as her shoulders bend at a weird angle. 

“Did I—?” 

A soft exhale comes from Lena, the usual sharpness returning to her eyes. 

“No. I’m just… surprised.” Her hands lightly land on Kara’s shoulders, and the pain she’s brought upon herself is chased away. “It’s not a question a dominant hears all that often.” Lena’s jaw works silently for a few moments, like she’s trying to chew what she wants to say next into bite-sized concepts. Easily digestible. “I believe everyone should have safewords, or a way to stop something if it gets too much. A lot of submissives just don’t think about asking. You… you took me off guard, but in a good way.” 

“So, you do have one then,” Kara presses, feeling emboldened. Lena hasn’t stopped touching her, and where her fingers trace — her collarbone, the hollow of her throat, her sides and lower, ghosting near her navel — she feels marked. Like prints in wet cement. 

“Yes.” Lena shifts, lithe and sudden. One moment she’s leaning on her elbow next to Kara, the next she’s straddling her thigh, breath hot and urgent against her cheek. “It’s…” And then she whispers it right in Kara’s ear. 

It’s an ordinary word. Nothing grandiose or funny like hers. And yet, something so intrinsic to their relationship, Kara’s lips curve into a smile. 

Something that would immediately stop things, too — if for no other reason than she’d be too hungry after hearing it to think about sex. 

But not today. Not now. 

Because now Lena’s touch is firmer, punctuated with the drag of blunt nails over her skin. Now Lena’s tongue is flicking at her earlobe, and Kara’s brain can’t function above base level. 

“I’d like to kiss you, darling.” Lena nuzzles along her jaw, and  _ fuck,  _ one inch higher and her thigh would be pushing up against her center. 

Kara likes that idea. She likes it very much. 

She quickens with a visceral reaction at the thought that Lena’d do just that and feel how wet she is for her through the thin cotton of her undies. “Babygirl?” Lena whispers again, eyes so dark with want they’re almost black. “May I?” 

All Kara can manage is a shaky nod and a whine. 

_ Babygirl _ . That alone is nearly enough to ruin her. A liquid sort of pulse starts at her core, melts through her spine. Every syllable drips searing hot down the column of her neck, to gather at the dip of her throat where Lena’s lips are softly grazing. 

Kara arches up, air knocked out of her lungs in a low, lust-filled moan. She’s barely got time to draw some back in before her lungs empty out again, this time directly into Lena’s mouth. 

They’ve kissed other times, of course. Pecks on the cheek in greeting every morning, Lena’s lips on her temple when her nightmares woke her up. But, even if clear affection accompanied each instance, Lena’s never kissed her quite like this. 

It’s a hungry drag of teeth and tongue, not harsh or demanding, but careful. Loving. Measured. And that’s perhaps the most maddening thing of all. 

It fills Kara with a burning need: to touch, to dig her nails in Lena’s back. To pull her close, then closer still until there’s no room left at all between them. And the fact that she can’t do any of it, tied up as she is, the awareness she can only writhe and make little noises in Lena’s mouth, hoping Miss will be kind enough to shift her thigh  _ forward  _ and  _ up  _ — she’s eaten at by lust in a way she’s never been before. 

The roll of Lena’s tongue against her is firm, soaked through with desire, but never vulgar. Insistent, like she’s delighting in the growing desperation she can taste on Kara’s lips. 

When Miss pulls away abruptly, to thread long fingers through her hair and draw her head to one side, baring her throat, Kara simply bucks into her, too blissed-out to talk. 

“Something you want, darling?” The tip of Lena’s tongue pointedly drags up the column of her throat, licking a wet strip back to her ear. There, at the soft stretch of skin that spans the angle of her jaw, Lena bites, sucks a purple mark. 

Something odd happens to her then. Her muscles go completely slack and a thick, but soothing fog wraps around her thoughts. She’s floating in it, weightless, small ripples expanding from her center to the rest of her. 

It’s not a proper climax, more of a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it flutter of her inner muscles, but when she comes back from it, the world pouring back into her as though she’s an empty vessel waiting to be filled, Lena’s cupping her cheek, frowning a little. 

“Did you just— did I—?”

“I think you went deep into subspace for a while there.” Kara tries to speak again, but Lena gently shushes her. It’s for the better anyway, she can only take shallow, unfulfilling breaths, her body not yet back to working as it should. “You may have orgasmed just a little.” 

“Oh.” Kara is somewhat ashamed that she couldn’t even last past the first bite. 

“Hey, it’s okay.” Lena’s fingers curl around her jaw, energy sparking between them. The planes of her skin break out in gooseflesh again, but this time it isn’t from the cold. “It’s flattering actually, to have someone so attuned to what I do they just—” Her eyes glaze over, and Kara glimpses a flash of teeth as Lena bites her lower lip. It turned her on. 

Kara coming like that  _ turned Lena on _ . 

A fresh wave of heat shoots down between her legs, and she fails to keep a broken whimper to herself. 

“Do you need more?” Lena asks, immediately putting her at the forefront of her thoughts. “Do you want me to touch you, Babygirl?” Her tone is scratchy-low, like she just smoked two packs of cigarettes back to back. “I can feel how wet you are.” The leg nestled between hers grinds into her cunt 

“Please.” Kara’s fingers flex against the rope, grip around it as if her life depends on it. “But— can it— can you be just Lena? My girlfriend.” 

Miss blinks, she softens (not that she was dour at all today), and if the aristocratic elegance of her features remains, it’s only Lena that leans down to undo the knots with expert fingers. To massage blood back into her wrists. To kiss each one carefully, till Kara can show her she is able to move both without a fuss. 

“I’d like that.” The drag of Lena’s lips along her collarbone dissolves into damp, open-mouthed kisses on her chest. 

Her breasts are squeezed through the padding of the bra, once, a promise of more attention, a  _ be back later _ sign all but inked on the flesh beneath Lena’s strong hands. 

“You’ve got no idea how much I’ve wanted you,” Lena sighs into her belly, fingers toying with the elastic band of her panties. “How many nights I’ve spent fucking myself to sleep, thinking of being inside you. Tasting you.” 

“I’m sorry I wasn’t ready sooner.” Kara reaches down, to stroke an apology at the crown of her head. “It just—” 

“I’m glad we waited.” Lena tilts her head up and when Kara’s hand falls away she grabs it, bringing it to her mouth to kiss each knuckle. “It wouldn’t have been the same if you weren’t ready for it.” 

“I can’t stop thinking about how it’ll feel when you...when you…” Kara wants to push out a complete, coherent sentence just for once. She’s a  _ journalist _ , goddammit. 

But Lena’s fingers have hooked around her panties, and she’s pulling them down, Kara’s hips instinctively lifting up to aid the movement. 

“Like this?” The warm exhale of words shivers directly into her slit and Kara blanks. “This is how you dreamed I’d touch you?” 

And, without waiting for a reply she knows isn’t coming anyway, Lena licks into her cunt. 

And— 

“ _ Fuck _ !” The high-pitched whine that rockets out of her is the most undignified thing her voice ever produced. A squeak, really, followed by struggling, panting breaths. “Please.” 

Lena hums against her folds, satisfied by her reaction, and the sound vibrates up her spine, a stricken match to her dry tinder. Kara is alight, she’s burning up, and every swipe of Lena’s tongue to her thudding clit, every roll of it, every flick, causes the fire to rage wilder. 

Lena pulls away, but Kara’s annoyance doesn’t even get a chance to rear its head. Deft fingers take the place of Lena’s tongue, spreading Kara open. Plunging inside, two of them, curling, teasing against her walls. 

Lena's mouth doesn’t stay idle. She’s mapping every inch of Kara’s inner thighs, down one to the soft place by her knee, then up the other. 

Kissing all the spots where her skin had been split open, and Kara realizes with a jolt that Lena must have memorized them, because no signs of the past violence remain. 

The tenderness of it almost makes her cry. It’s enough to throw her over the edge, clenching around Lena as the head she’d lifted to watch what her girlfriend was doing slams back into the pillows. Kara’s hands flail around for something to grab onto; Lena’s hair, her back, her bicep. Then, as she ends up with one tangled up in the discarded rope, the fingers of Lena’s free hand bump against her other clumsily. Some scrabbling ensues, but then their fingers intertwine, and Lena is her anchor while she comes undone. 

The fingers inside her withdraw, Lena’s tongue moving in again, lapping at her release before it flattens to her clit, eager to coax another out of her. 

It’s fast and hot this time around, spearing through her the moment Lena’s lips close around her clit and  _ suck _ . She grinds into the wet heat of her mouth, not caring that she’s smearing herself all over Lena’s face. The world falls away somewhere distant and unconcerning. Only the incessant roll of Lena’s tongue into her center matters. 

Kara doesn’t know how many times she comes like that. They all blend together after a while; Lena’s tongue again, a gentle tug of her teeth. After that, her fingers – three, and deeper than they’d been the first time. 

She winds up tight and releases, winds up again, and only when the sensation of Lena’s tongue starts to border on painful does Kara try to weakly close her legs, hand pushing at Lena’s shoulder. Tapping out. 

“Can’t—” she manages as Lena climbs back up to hold her. “No more, please.” 

“You’re beautiful,” Lena murmurs in response, allowing her to lick strands of her own arousal from her chin. “I love watching you come undone. I don’t think I could ever get enough.” 

“Isn’t it a good thing we don’t have time limits, then?” Kara hates the small tremor in her voice. Despite all the progress she’s made, she can’t keep a splinter of doubt from tormenting her. She’s tried to pluck it out, but it won’t go. The subtle, whispering fear that Lena doesn’t feel about her the same way she does, the potential she’ll say or do something wrong. Make Lena run for the hills and never look back. 

She’s brought back by the press of Lena’s lips at the corner of her mouth. They’re still holding hands, and Lena’s eyes are on hers. She doesn’t waver, doesn’t even blink, only rests their foreheads together in a way that speaks of something intimate. 

Kara feels it again when she’s rolled on her side and gently spooned, Lena pulling the blanket over them both.

“You’re right.” Lena smiles against her throat, kisses at her pulse point. “We’ve got all the time in the world.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [join me on Tumblr](https://kendrene.tumblr.com/) for more gay nonsense!

**Author's Note:**

> [join me on Tumblr](https://kendrene.tumblr.com/) for more gay nonsense!
> 
> or find me on Twitter @Kendrene17
> 
> And sound off below if you want a sequel!


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